Colloquia

One of the Department of Political Science's greatest strengths is its thriving intellectual community. We host several different colloquia focusing on a variety of topics: international relations, comparative politics, political theory, political methodology, public policy, political psychology, and power, equity, and diversity. In these workshops, graduate students and faculty from around the University can share and gain valuable feedback on works in progress. Furthermore, nationally and internationally renowned visiting scholars often present their work at these same workshops.

The American Politics Colloquium provides a venue for presentations of new and innovative work relating to political institutions, public policies, and mass political behavior in American politics. The colloquium hosts several top scholars in the field throughout the year to present their latest work. In addition, the colloquium serves as a forum for Minnesota graduate students to present their on-going work and engage in substantive and methodological conversations pertaining to their work and current issues in American politics.

Faculty Advisor: Paul Goren

Student Organizers: Taylor Hvidsten, Brianna Kreft

The Comparative Politics Colloquium is a forum for conversations about innovative approaches to the study of comparative politics. Each semester, we select several top scholars from a range of disciplines to invite to speak. We also provide a valuable forum for graduate students from within the department to present their work.

General Inquiries: [email protected]

Faculty Advisor: David Samuels

Student Organizers: Xiufan Wu, Alexandra Zhuravel

Minnesota International Relations Colloquium (MIRC) is a series of informal seminars and presentations organized by University of Minnesota graduate students of International Relations. Since 1997, MIRC has served as an on-going forum for Minnesota students and faculty, and guests from other colleges and universities, to participate in academically informed and politically engaged conversations about theoretical and practical issues pertaining to international and global politics.

Faculty Advisor: Mark Bell

Student Organizers: Vincent Doehr, Andy Noland

The goal of the Political Methodology Colloquium is to provide a venue for the discussion of methodologically informed political science research. Each semester we invite a number of top scholars and graduate students from the University of Minnesota and the outside scholarly community to present on research topics related to either (1) political and social science methodology or (2) the application of these methods to questions of interest to political science at large.

General Inquiries: [email protected]

Faculty Advisor: Jane Sumner

Student Organizers: Nicolas Campos, Jake Lee

The Power, Equity, and Diversity (PED) Colloquium is held in the spring semester of every other academic year. It is a curated forum for moderated conversations about power, equity, and diversity. Our objective is to workshop ideas on these topics as they relate to the study of politics, and thus to foster meaningful and cutting-edge research in political science and beyond. 

Each session promises to feature select University of Minnesota faculty from across subfields in the Department of Political Science in conversation with faculty from other social science and humanities disciplines on our campus and/or guests from other institutions. Sessions will be organized around a specific problem and a set of guiding questions. Possible topics for the upcoming spring 2024 colloquium include: approaches to comparison across the social science and humanities; policing and higher education; war, women, and memory; and the environment and the state.

Faculty Organizer: Arash Davari

Every year, graduate students in the Department of Political Science at the University of Minnesota put together a schedule of academic sessions relevant to political theory, in the form of paper presentations, roundtable discussions, and reading groups. Presenters are graduate students, department faculty, faculty from other cognate departments at the university, other local college faculty (Carleton, Macalester, St. Olaf, etc.), and the occasional out-of-town guest. Past guests have included Charles Mills (CUNY Graduate Center), Linda Zerilli (UChicago), Ernesto Laclau (Northwestern), Amitai Etzioni (George Washington), Wendy Brown (UC Berkeley), Bonnie Honig (Brown), and Nicholas Xenos (UMass Amherst).

General Inquiries: [email protected]

Faculty Advisor: Nancy Luxon

Student Organizers: Matthew Martin, Sydney Stout

Date Event
9/8 MIRC: Ann Towns: "Imperial, Familial and Bureaucratic: Global Gender Logics of Bilateral Diplomacy."
9/10 APC: Christina Farhart, Carleton College: "Losers' Conspiracy: Elections and Conspiracism."
9/17 CPC: Professor David Samuels, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities.
9/18 CPC: Azim Wazeer, Oxford University. Co-hosted with the Department of Asian and Middle Eastern Studies and the Institute for Global Studies.
9/22 MIRC: Linus Hagström, Swedish Defense University: "The Narrative Politics of Security: The Emotional Life of Japan's."
9/26 PTC: Reading session: Massimiliano Tomba's "Revolution and Restoration."
10/1 MPMC: Jon Green, Duke University: "How to Think About (and Study) Political Podcasts."
CPC: Lisa Mueller, Macalester College: "Protest Waves and Crime Waves."
10/8 APC & MPMC: Sarah Beck: "Defining women's issues through legislative behavior."
10/10 PTC: Adam Lê + reading, Mia Angelica Sosa-Provencio: "Creolizing the white spaces of teacher education: Possibilities and tensions of a pedagogy of mestizaje in the crossroads."
10/13 MIRC: Noam Reich.
10/15 CPC & MPMC: Alfred Montero, Carleton College: "Trajectories of Political Polarization in Argentina (2003-2023)."
10/24 PTC: Reading session, Premesh Lalu: "What is the University For?"
10/29 MPMC: Danny Kim, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities.
11/3 MIRC: Roundtable.
11/12 CPC & MIRC: Chris Heurlin, Bowdoin College / Carleton College: "The Enduring Power of Communism: The International Origins of Authoritarian Consolidation."
11/14 PTC: Cancelled: Reading session, Elleni Zeleke: "Ethiopia in Theory."
11/17 MIRC: Baruch Malewich: Practice Job Talk.
11/19 APC: Sarah Treul, UNC Chapel Hill.
CPC: Edmund Downie, Princeton University: "Engines of the Transition: When Does Cleantech Manufacturing Drive Climate Ambition?"
12/3 MPMC: Nick Campos, University of Minnesota - Twin Cities: Methods Resources: Why Should We Care about Measurement?
CPC: Student Presentations: Patrick McCormick.
12/5 PTC: Yves Winter, McGill University: "What Is an Imaginary?"
12/8 MIRC: Daniela Sepúlveda Soto.